Acer as a company has been around in eSports for many years long before their decision to create and manage a team. They have been supporting and donating money to wide range of tournaments in all kinds of games, whether it was League of Legends or Starcraft 2. However, it was their decision to create their own team that brought them huge attention from all kinds of eSports-related websites and communities.
Still, Starcraft 2 was not their game of choice; they first acquired FIFA back in February 2011 when they’ve launched Team Acer’s website. Yet, their current super-star players are all in the Starcraft 2 roster.
At the very beginning of Acer’s existence in the world of Zerg, Terran, and Protoss they brought in four players to the team, including the most famous German SC:BW player – Mondragon, but as the time was passing by none of them excluding Nerchio, who we are going to talk about in a minute, have not shown any promising results.
Currently, the once called “all-zerg” team has 5 active players in their line-up. Four zergs: Bly, Nerchio, ParanOid, and Scarlett who joined Acer late June 2012, and one terran – DarkHydra. Single SCV user on the team is also the youngest – he was born in 1997. He participates in online cups on a regular basis, but has won only 1 so far back in 2011. Earlier this year Christian was invited as a stan-in for DeMulim to attend HomeStory Cup IV; he lost 0-3 in his group.
ParanOid aka GOsia used to be one of the top SC:BW players in Poland winning 2009 Polish WCG qualifiers. He played alongside Mondragon in clan called Templars of Twilight. Lately he qualified to IPL Season 5 through the European Satellite Qualifiers, but just like DarkHydra, he also has no huge victories in his Starcraft 2 portfolio.
Bly, despite not being the most recognized player from his country, is one of the top players representing Ukraine on the international scene at the moment. Active participant in many online cups he proves every single time why people cannot underestimate him. He took first place during WCS Ukraine Nationals beating faer, White-Ra, Strelok, and White-Ra once again in the finals. He also qualified for the IPL Season 5 just like DarkHydra and Nerchio through the European Satellite Qualifiers.
Until recently Team Acer was known because of Nerchio who grew immensely as a player since he joined the team in July 2011, but now he’s not the only star on the team. Scarlett has been performing good since she started playing in the official tournaments like IGN ProLeague Season 4 where she took out DeMusliM, Terius and DdoRo or IPL TAC 3, but the epiphany of her skill took place during WCS Canada qualifiers and WCS NA Championship where she destroyed the competition winning both events with less than 10 games lost in total.
She is more than ready to take part in a huge international events, and go against the best our scene has to offer, but IPTL Season 1 is also going to be a test of her true abilities. For the first time in her career, Scarlett will have to play against the best of what Europe and Korea has to offer; this is not a North American only tournament anymore. Is she going to step up? We might potentially find that out on the 13th of September when Team Acer face aTn.Type in their IPTL Season 1 opening match.
The last but definitely not least on the team is Artur “Nerchio” Bloch. This Polish zerg is not only perceived as a top player in his country, but as one of the best players outside Korea. What is more, in public’s opinion he is also the most skilled Zerg on the western scene, but he exchanges this title with Stephano constantly based on their results in the most recent events. Second place at IEM Cologone 2012, First place in HomeStory Cup V, First place in WCS Poland Nationals and many many more – this is a short list of his latest achievements, and he’s still coming for more.
Although, we what we are seeing now is Nerchio at his best, last year during European Battle.net Invitational he was still an inexperienced newcomer, constantly described as a maphacker and a stream cheater due to his amazing runs in online cups, and poor performance during offline tournaments. Back then people didn’t believe him, when he said that he gets stressed during big events like EBI 2011 for example, but now he got it all sorted out, and can perform at the highest competitive level in Starcraft.
In a team league like IPTL both Nerchio and Scarlett might be used for two things; opening a match to get an early advantage and closing a match to secure a victory. Scarlett has proven many times in the past that she has no problem with being under pressure, hence she might be used by her team mainly as a closer, whereas Nerchio can open a match or be used in the middle of it to secure a draw or catch-up with a score.
Nonetheless, Team Acer, being one of the best team in their group, have a huge chance of advancing into the Up and Down Matches. With two strong star players as a core of their success they might even advance to Premier Division next season.
Written by Albert Palka
Source : feeds[dot]ign[dot]com
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